AR-News: (HK) Meanwhile: Echoes of panic over global disease

[Animalconcerns]

[from International Herald Tribune]

HONG KONG  Ebola, SARS, avian flu, mad cow disease: We live in the shadow
of new epidemics. The avian virus, for instance, might mutate, we are
told, learning to transmit itself directly from human to human. But is
that possibility 50:50, 50:1 or 500:1?

No sensible policy is possible without assessing risks and the likely
costs of avoiding them. It may be the World Health Organization's duty to
warn of dangers, but societies have broader interests in weighing costs
and risks and a right to subject current scientific wisdom to scrutiny.

Experts fret that globalization is increasing the risk of the spread of
new diseases. In response, societies are being urged to arm themselves
with ever greater precautions. At the official level there has been
culling of animals and quarantining . Unofficially, there has been a more
dramatic response. Travel collapsed last year because of fear of severe
acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. Countries as far apart as Japan and
Australia were badly hit even though they had no cases of SARS, whose
method of propagation is still little understood. Now, avian flu threatens
a repeat.

full story:
http://www.iht.com/articles/129995.html

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